...but science is science.
Environmental Justice Aspects of Exposure to PM2.5 Emissions from Electric Vehicle Use in China (Shuguang Ji*†, Christopher R. Cherry*‡, Wenjun Zhou§, Rapinder Sawhney†, Ye Wu∥, Siyi Cai∥, Shuxiao Wang∥, and Julian D. Marshall⊥, Environ. Sci. Technol., 2015, 49 (24), pp 13912–13920)
Sustainable development aims to address economic development, social equity, and environmental protection.(1) Plug-in electric vehicles (EVs) are often considered as a technology to support sustainable development in the transportation sector.(2, 3) Several prior studies have focused on environmental sustainability of EVs, focusing on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions(4-8) or local air pollution,(9) and public health.(2, 10-12) For conventional vehicles (CVs), use-phase emissions occur where vehicles are used; for urban EVs, use-phase emissions instead occur at (for fossil fuels) the power plant where electricity is generated. This shift remedies some intraurban environmental justice (EJ) challenges,(13-17) but potentially creates new challenges by exporting pollution to populations far from urban centers.
In China, EVs, including electric bikes (e-bikes) and electric cars (e-cars), are often considered an approach toward sustainable transportation, balancing mobility, energy security, GHG emissions, and air pollution. From 2011 to 2014, the annually estimated sales of e-bikes in China grew from 31.0 million units to 34.2 million units.(18) In the meantime, the annual sales of full plug-in e-cars in China increased from 5579 to 45 048 vehicles.(19, 20) The Chinese central government also designed an ambitious plan to add 5 million pure e-cars and plug-in hybrid e-cars on the road by 2020.(21) In the short and medium term, EVs may not reduce GHG emissions or local air pollution due to reliance on coal electricity generation.(2, 4, 7, 22, 23)
Of course, a
scienitfic journal mentioning "environmental justice" may be a little bit of a reach for a scientific journal, but in my opinion it beats drivel out of the Union of Concerned "Scientists."
The Union of Concerned "Scientists" is anything but a union of concerned scientists.
What the Union of Concerned "Scientists" thinks is important is very different than what I, as a scientist, for one example find important.
They think that the end of the world took place at Fukushima, that it's more important than 7 million deaths per year from air pollution.
I think that climate change is a far more serious issue.
Ed Lyman, UCS's "nuclear expert" can go fuck himself. His paranoid scare stories
kill people.
Now, if electricity were supplied by
nuclear energy electric cars might be less obnoxious, but they'd still be cars, and the environmental justice of child slave laborers digging Cobalt in the Congo would still apply.
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